The Armed Man

Warm.

Warm.

Warm.

Warm.

Pleasantly cool.

I was dimly aware that I was lying sideways. There was something underneath my head that hadn’t
been there before. Something that wasn’t made of cold tiling. Oh, the joys of non-porcelain building material. It was rough. Itchy. Itchy and rough, like sacking. I moved my head slightly and it almost took half the skin off my face. I couldn’t still be on the street.
I tried to open my eyes. I got as far as seeing somewhere large and grey and a chair out of my proiferole vision. But sleep wasn’t ready to release its hold on me just yet.

I lay, drifting in and out of consciousness, for days. I had vague memories at the time, like dream sequences, where I woke up and looked around me, but I could ever remember them again. Every night I woke up screaming.

“He looks skin and bone.” I heard someone say thickly, in a moment of lucidity, like they were underwater. Someone else snorted.

“Don’t let appearances fool you. He almost took my arm out, bringing him over here.”
That’s all I can remember.

I felt myself swimming, upwards, upwards through thick black water. Things kept brushing against my arms and legs, dead things, and I knew I had to swim upwards, upwards. I hauled and heaved myself through. I felt like my blood was going to burst, or my lungs would boil with the effort. I felt leaden. I knew that if I stopped, I’d sink again. There was a chess piece in front of me. I dragged. I broke the surface.

I lay there for a few moments, breathing heavily and trying to discern where I was. I listened for water. I remembered that it was a dream. I tried to hold on to consciousness. It was easier, this time. It might have been adrenalin. I felt more awake than I had done in days. I let my eyes flutter open.

I lay unable to move, kitten weak with a song running through my head. It was a song I knew. A man and a piano. One of the most wonderful partnerships in the world. It had been used on an advert after Christmas one year. It reminded me of mum and dad. It made me more sad than I can say.

The view around me came filtering into view with a strange sort of familiarity. It was like revisiting a childhood haunt. There was a very weak, grey light coming through one of the windows.

At first I thought we were in a station waiting room, before I realised it was far too big for that. The room looked like a small and well furnished warehouse. Two dark shapes swam in vaguely. As they sharpened, I recognised them as people. There were two, I counted them. One was about my age, dark haired and curly, lounging carelessly in an armchair with his back almost to me. The other was older, smaller, plumper and definitely more female, who might have been his mother. She jumped when I looked at her.

“He’s awake again! Oh, darling…” she came right up to me, and I thought for a completely wild moment that she was going to hug me, which frightened me a bit to say the least, but her attention seemed more focused on a mug by the side of my covering that I hadn’t noticed until now. She looked like an old friend.

“This is cold. I’ll get you another one. You wait there.”

This was a bit of an empty command, I could barely move for cold. There was an uncomfortable lump in my pocket. Hard, like a stone. I was on the floor, on rags on a concrete floor. Covered in blankets and lying on rags. It was horribly cold. I was right about the pillow. It looked suspiciously like a potato sack, but at least it was clean. I tried to shuffle upwards slightly and have a better look at where I was but unfortunately, my head exploded as soon as I tried. I could feel nothing but blinding white.

“Here.” I just about heard through throbbing. “I don’t care if you don’t like it, it’s warm.” I felt her come down to my level, kneel beside my pathetic bed. “Can you hear me?”

I tried to make a noise, but all that came out was a horrible, gurgling groan. I tried gasping, and felt all my insides drop away. It felt like they were going through a combine harvester.
“It happened to me, too. Give it five minutes.”

I lay back and tried to get as comfortable as a sack would let you. After what seemed an eternity of staring upwards at the back of my eyes I felt my headache begin to recede slightly. A minute more, and it had ebbed away to almost bearable. My neck hurt. I wanted to sit up. I tried, very gingerly, to pull myself up on my arms. They felt reassuringly strong.

“Blimey, he doesn’t look good, does he?”

As I blinked away the last of sleep form my eyes, I became dimly aware of the people on the other side of the room looking at me. When I could see completely, I realised it seemed that they were staring at me in utter shock.

The woman was the first to move. “Here.” She said, snapping out of what looked like paralysis and moving quickly and matter-of-factly towards me. “Drink this. It might not be much, but it’s warm.” She thrust the mug into my hands with such force that I almost dropped it in surprise. It was about a quarter or so full of thick, black coffee, and tasted uncomfortably like gunpowder. Over the rim, I could see that the other boy hadn’t even bothered to change his expression as he watched me drink.

“No offence, mate,” he said at last, slowly and lowly “but how are you not, like, dead?”

Icy fear gripped me.

“Fitzsimmons!”

“What do you mean?” I could feel, literally feel death in me, now. Now he’d said that and it was coming for me. In panic, I looked down at my arms, waiting for the blood in my veins to turn black. They looked much the same as usual to me.

“He’s having you on, darling. Don’t worry about him. Look, your blanket’s falling off. Come and sit by the fire.”

The woman, who possessed an uncomfortable amount of strength for someone so small, put her arms around mine and dragged me rather forcefully towards what looked like a very old, very small furnace, and a sofa. My head reeled as she did so. The other boy drew his feet up obediently, still staring, although less intensely than before. Up close, I noticed that he was filthy.

“What do you mean I look dead?” I asked him in a low voice, as soon as I felt a bit less at sea and trying to make out that I wasn’t worried. As soon as I sat down, I drew my feet up inside the blanket I had draped over me. It was thick and warm and all homemade.

“You don’t look as bad close up.” He tried to reassure me, in a not very reassuring way, “but I’ve seen skeletons with more flesh on them than you’ve got. Look-” he turned round and picked up a piece of what was either very strong mirror or very highly polished metal from a small table containing that and a lamp and offered it to me. I took it gingerly, watching him
edgily.

“Don’t look at me like that, I won’t eat you.”

He’d left a few black thumbprints on the corner. I remembered the bit of glass I’d picked up
and wondered wildly if it was alright or not. My reflection in this didn’t look much different in
this from how it did in that. Maybe a bit more drawn. More pale, more dirty, more drawn. Not
recently deceased. I looked at him quizzically as I gave it back.

“Don’t you…. have you always looked like that?” He looked incredulous, even more so when
he’d finished speaking and still left his mouth open. “Mate, how long were you out there?”

“Three days, give or take. It’s warmer in here, though.” I said gratefully, pointing my feet in the
direction of the ‘fire’. It was quite cosy actually, once you got used to it. It must have been
some kind of storage building, once upon a time. It was made entirely out of concrete. There
were spanners all over the place. This little sliver we were in must have been about fifteen,
twenty feet across, and a door had been sunk into the wall I’d woken up next to, so I
assumed that that led on to something else. They’d done their best to make it homely, though.
Nothing matched. The sofa I wasn’t sitting on could have seated about seven. There were
mismatched armchairs all over the place, next to some mismatched tables and grouped
around a mismatched rug. There were a fair few oil lamps about the place.

The boy was mismatched, too. His eyes were the temperamental colour of the sea and, I
noticed, and the rest of him was basically black with what looked uncannily akin to soot. The area of skin around his eyes and the bridge of his nose was utterly clean. He looked like a confused raccoon.

The song still went through my head.

He stopped himself staring sceptically at me with a shake of his head and said, at a play in
being friendly “So, what’s your name?”

“Benedict. Benedict Vesely. I would shake your hand, but I’d probably catch the Plague.”

“Veesely?” His upper lip curled slightly in puzzlement, putting too much stress on the first ‘e’.
“What the hell kind of name is that?”

“It’s Czech.” I defended. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Fitz.”

“And you laughed at my name.”

“It’s weird.”

“Short for anything?”

“Fitzsimmons.”

“That your Christian name?”

“You think about that.”

We sat in a sort of edgy silence as we both tried to size one another up mentally. He looked
hard. He was bigger than me. He had a stony look on his face, like I was inferior to him.

I cleared my throat. “So you two aren’t the only ones here?”

“God, no.”

He swung his feet up onto the sofa, into the gap between me and him. I looked him
indignantly, but I don’t think he got the message. He started counting on his fingers. “There’s
Rosie and I. Gypsy and Rag. Small people. Others pop in from time to time. It’s all one huge
mess.”

“Is Rosie your mother?”

“No.”

I backed away awkwardly from the nerve I’d just stamped on. “Oh.”

I tried to process names. Had he said Rag? What on earth could possess someone to call a
child ‘Rag’?

“And who do you….” I started, waving my hand vaguely in circles. “You know.”

“No-one.” he said firmly. “Un-military. And you better be too, because there’s no way I’m
getting up in the middle of the night to sew your leg back on.”

I felt like someone had just undone a huge vice from around my chest. I hadn’t even realised
I’d been wearing it. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” I said, perhaps a little bit more darkly
than I’d intended, because Fitz suddenly looked very interested.

“You too?” he asked. Gently.

“HMRA.”

“Jude McCullough?” He leaned forwards in something like awe, and I thought that his eyes
were going to fall out, he’d opened them so wide. “Jesus, you’re lucky to be here.”

“Why, who were you with?”

“I wasn’t.” He said shortly. “My brother was a Parliamentarian. He kept asking me to join.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Yeah, well.” he said darkly. “He got his head blown off on the first raid he did, so that sort of
put me off a bit, didn’t it?”

A very awkward silence descended.

“Anyway.” He said finally, in an attempt to dispel it (Fitz, as you’ll find out, is a braver man
than I) “The whole thing is just a massive waste of time. There’s nothing in it for me, nothing
in it for you and people keep dying all over the place.”

“We all think like that.”

“Yeah, well. Prov Gov.” He used these words like a dogma or a prayer.

I tried my best to disguise my snort. “Are all very well, but it’s not like they’ll get anything
done.”

“They haven’t been able to set one up before. It’s got to be a sign of the times.”

It’s true. A Provisional Government had been set up, very loosely, some time ago. God, it was
probably months now. They’d been booed (and bombed) out of house before, but now it
looks as though they could have a stable standing at last.

“It keeps the Crommies happy, anyway.” I said to myself in an undertone, but Fitz must have
had batlike hearing beneath that curly hair.

“Crommies?”

“Cromwells.” I coloured slightly. “It’s just slang.”

Maybe old habits die hard.

“You should have heard some of the things that my brother called Jude.” He said, but he
looked amused with it. “I think that makes us about even. What made you leave?”

“They asked me to.”

Fitz looked at me incredulously. “Christ, you weren’t that bad, were you?”

I smiled despite myself. “I was too young.”

He cocked his head to one side like a dog, staring at my face like he was trying to work
something out. “How old are you?” he asked when, evidently, he hadn’t been able to.

“Sixteen.”

“Oh. I thought you were older.”

“I look it. I’m probably going grey.”

“You are, but I’m pretty sure it’s just dust. There’s a bath next door, but I warn you- it’s bloody
freezing.”

I wondered if that’s why he was so filthy. “Thanks.” I said, with a thin smile. “I’ll bear it in
mind.”

He returned my smile and Rosie walked in.

“I’ve just sent Rag out on a scavenging mission. With a bit of luck, we’ll eat tomorrow.” She
beamed in a motherly fashion, and it seemed to light up even more when she saw us sitting
together. “Oh, good, you’re getting along. Fitz.” It waned slightly. “If you’re finished in the back
room?”

Fitz rolled his eyes in exasperation, but got up dutifully anyway. “The things I do for you.”

“And you’ll do a lot more than that if you want to stay!” She called after his retreating form,
mock angry. He gave her a very obvious two fingered salute and closed the door. She tutted,
but smiled indulgently at me all the same. If I’d acted like that to my own mother, I’d have been
skinned alive.

“He’s got this strange aversion to housework.” She explained to me, as if I’d asked. “It’s all
very well, except that he produces more mess than anyone else. If I had to count the amount
of wrenches I’d picked up today alone…”

“Why does he leave wrenches round the place?” I asked, puzzled. He hadn’t seemed the
kind of person to be particularly into mechanics or similar. I wouldn’t have thought he’d want
to risk his good looks. Although it might go some way to explain the spanners.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know why he’s incapable of putting anything back. I’ve given up
asking him, to be honest. Now I just shout.” She paused with one arm up to brush away a
stray strand of mouse coloured hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I haven’t asked your name.”

She sounded genuinely apologetic about this. I didn’t know why.

“It’s Benedict.” I told her. It sat in the air for a while, a stodgy silence.

“I’m Rosie. Rosanna Argyle. Rosie. I take it Fitz introduced himself?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“He’s a good lad. I think you’ll be quite close. We’ve got two more as well here, you know.
Two girls. I try to pick people up as I go along.”

I tried my best at a bright smile. “I like it, what you’ve got going on here.” I gestured, from the
floor to the squat, square ceiling and light stabbed my eyes. “It’s nice.”

“This? Oh, it’s nothing.” she said modestly, but looked pleased all the same. “But it’s very kind
of you to say. Is there anything else I can get you, darling?”

There were about a thousand things that I wanted, but it didn’t seem plausible that I’d find any
of them in an old warehouse (I think that’s what it was, an old warehouse). I shook my head
politely and cuddled further down into my blanket. A delicious warm shiver ran down my
spine.

“Are you sure? You look half starved.”

The mere idea of food made me feel nauseous.

“Everyone is. Really, I’m fine.”

She plainly didn’t believe a word I said, but desisted anyway and tried to change the subject.
“Fitz says he found you out in the road.”

“I found him in a doorframe actually, and he had quite good reason to be there.” Fitz’s voice
said dramatically as he came around the corner and collapsed theatrically back beside me.
“I’ve just had a sudden and uncontrollable longing for a Chinese.”

“You’ll be lucky. Why were you in a doorframe?” She turned her attention back to me quickly
with a concerned look on her face. “You’re not in trouble are you?”

I looked helplessly at Fitz, who nodded back to Rosie. She was looking at me in such a
politely expectant way it would seem rude not to answer.

“I’m ex-militia.” I told her, watching for the flinch. It came, and she closed her eyes and jerked
her head suddenly, as if she were in pain. But she did her best to supress it.

“Oh?” She asked once she’d recovered, with a very obvious acting tone to her voice. “Who’s
side?”

“Blues and Royals. They sort of adopted me, if I’m honest. I’m a war orphan.”

“You’re not the only one. Rag’s parents were killed in an explosion just west of here. Bloody,
bloody war.” She spat, looking uncharacteristically bitter. The firelight on her face made her
look ancient. “And then what happened?”

“They were the HMRA.”

Her head jerked up then. Like a puppet.

“Jude McCullough?” She asked quietly, with a look of disbelieving awe similar to Fitz’s on her
face. “Did Jude McCullough take you in?”

“Not directly.” I admitted. “But I knew him. Vaguely. He was a good man.”

Fitz snorted. Rosie shushed him absent mindedly.

“Tell me,” she said, still in her quiet tone. “Was he as... wild as they said he was?”

“He was mental.” I answered simply. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it felt good to talk about
Jude. Like water when you’re thirsty, or a bed when you’re tired. It was like a relief. I
relaxed, loosened off a bit and longed, for the first time, to speak freely. “Bloody brilliant, but
mental. He cared about us, though. He cared about us a lot. I never saw him put anyone else
in danger when it could have been him.”

I glanced over at Fitz, who was sitting rigidly next to me. I could tell from the way his left eye was twitching that he was probably dying to say something disparaging, but the quick, dangerous glances that Rosie kept shooting him seemed to be keeping him in line.

She dropped her voice again. If it got any lower, I’d have to go looking for it under the table.
“So he wasn’t…” she looked around suspiciously, leant forwards and whispered “a
madman?” as if it were the most terrible thing in the world.

Two years of Royalist indignation flooded into my chest, but I didn’t feel angry. On the
contrary, I felt like laughing. Strange, that.

“A madman? Jude?” I laughed. Oh, Jude. “Well, yeah, actually. I suppose he was. But not in
the way you’re thinking.” I stopped. “He was a brilliant man. He only wanted peace.”

I could have sworn I heard Fitz mutter “Then he had a funny way of showing it.” under his
breath, but I’ll never know, because at that moment the strangest looking girl I have ever seen
opened the door and tripped her way in.

She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t even pretty in the way that not being pretty can sometimes
make you so. Striking, or whatever they call it. Striking, but in a way that made you stop and
think ‘Jesus, what happened to her face?’

It was triangular. There’s no other way to describe it. This girl had a triangular head. Her
forehead might have been about normal sized on anyone else, but it tapered down from her
eyebrow at an alarming rate and ended in a chin that could probably cut butter. She had very
long, very matted yellowy hair and very protrubent eyes that must have been about twice the
size of any normal person’s. She didn’t seem to have cheekbones.

“Hello, all!” She said jauntily, closing the door with a bang and locking it violently. “It’s snowing
out there.”

Fitz jumped to his feet, grinning with childish glee and ran to a window I hadn’t noticed
before, with curtains made of old jean. He waited there eagerly for a few moments before
remerging, and looking disappointed with it. “It’s pathetic.”

Rag, however, was looking at me in what I think was surprise. Not only was her face
triangular, it was very long with it. She looked as if she was permanently sucking something
that she didn’t like. I smiled at her tentatively, unwilling to remove my hands from around my
knees. I was so warm I could just sleep here.

Rosie, who had been staring at the window in something like horror at the predicament of
snow, gauged her expression and introduced us impatiently. “What? Oh, yes. Raggy darling,
this is Benedict. Benedict, this is Rag. Call her Ragdoll if you like.”

I opened my mouth to politely enquire what, exactly, the origins of this name were, but Fitz
beat me to it.

“Congratulations, Rag, this has to be the most suspicious looking bread I’ve seen in a long
time.” He said, rifling through the small jute sack that Rag had left by the door. It didn’t look too
dissimilar to the one that I’d slept on. “What else did you get?”

“There wasn’t a lot.” she said, surprisingly benignly for someone who’s shopping skills had
just been sneered at by someone as obnoxious as Fitz. “There was something posing as
ham hock, but I didn’t get it. It was probably, like, bits of dog or something.”

“Fitz, get away from there.” Rosie scolded lightly, rising up out of her chair to inspect the bag
contents herself. “I daresay there’s nothing that’ll interest you, anyway.”

Rag smiled at me nervously (her teeth, I noticed, were all splayed out) and sat lightly down in
the just vacated seat beside me.

Fitz pulled out a carrot and looked at it in disgust.

“I think you’re right.” he said strongly, getting off his knees. “It’s all yours, Rose. Do what you
will. Oh, Rag get out of there.” He saw where she was sitting and waved his hand lazily.
She ‘hmph’ed at him disdainfully but, to my surprise, got up and stalked over to another chair,
slightly closer to the fire.

“Still as charming as ever I see, Fitzsimmons? Anyway, the joke’s on you. It’s warmer over
here.”

“Who said I wanted to be warm? I’m closer to blankets this way. Sorry, Benedict…”

I felt what were unmistakeably feet work their way into the warm little fortress I’d built myself
and sit there like blocks of ice. I wasn’t having this.

“Oi!” I said, as indignantly as I could muster. I could feel that heavy, sedated feeling coming
back again. “Get your own foot warmer!”

“I have. He’s ever so toasty.”

With some considerable regret and a silent apology to my hand, I drew my arm out of my
blanket covering and started batting Fitz’s exposed ankles. It didn’t work. He kicked me.

Rag surveyed us under raised eyebrows. Fitz seemed to have guessed that my next move
would have been to tickle him, because he had both my wrists and was holding them
uncomfortably tightly above my head. We were both giggling uncontrollably.

“Oh Fitz, you’ll break him!”

“He’s fine. Look, I’m going to let go now. My feet stay where they are.”

“If… if you say so.” I said, trying to catch my breath after laughing. I was also lying at a
ninety degree angle, and it would have been very tempting to go to sleep there and then, if
my head wasn’t resting on Fitz’s lap. I thought that might just be overstepping the line slightly.
I pulled myself up with difficulty, using the arm of the settee and curled up as small as I could
under what I was still adamant to remain ‘my’ blanket. My eyes were too heavy to keep open.

“Where’s Gypsy?”

“She can’t be far. I did see her, not that long ago. I think she was getting wood.”

Fitz snorted.

“Wouldn’t have thought she’d want to spoil her clothes.” He said sardonically. I could tell that
he sank down slightly, because his feet dug into my side. I shuffled in weak protest.

“Where did you find him?” Rag asked, in a very low voice. I could tell she didn’t want me to
listen. I strained my ears to hear every word.

“Street. Ex- Look, Rag, no doubt Gypsy will want to hear everything when she gets back as
well. Wait till then, hey?”

There was a small silence, in which I’m guessing Rag probably nodded her head. To be
honest, I was beginning to lose interest slightly. I kept feeling a black wash pull itself over my
head every few moments. I could let go and drown.

“Are you alright?” Asked Fitz. “You look odd.”

“Mmmm.” I pulled myself reluctantly out of sleep’s hands. “I’m tired.”

“Go to bed?”

I looked around helplessly.

“Through the doors.” Rag jumped in. “You see where Rosie took that bag? Just through there
is a small hallway. I think you’ll be in the room next to Fitz.”

“Have mine tonight.” Fitz offered, stretching. “You don’t look like you could last another night
being cold.”

Rag looked at him in shock. “That’s inordinately decent of you.”

“Well, I don’t want him to catch his death. I nearly broke both arms carrying him in here, and I
don’t want it all to be in vain of he’s going to croak first night. My room’s first on the left.” he
added. “They all look the same, but it’s got some books by the side of it. You’re welcome to
dip in, if you can find a torch.”

I nodded sleepily.

“Don’t light a candle.” Rag advised me.

“Well, no. Don’t light a candle and then fall asleep before putting it out. I think that’s a more
accurate version of events, isn’t it Rag?”

She coloured.

“Anyway. We’re low on candles.”

“So don’t light one anyway.”

I was quite comfortable.

“And we’ll find pyjamas tomorrow.”

“Or tonight, if you don’t want to sleep in your clothes.”

“These are fine.” I said, not exactly relishing the idea of rifling through boxes of unused
clothing. Rag snorted something that sounded uncannily like “Men.”, but Fitz had me by the
arm.

“Stand up then, I’m not carrying you. Right, take that too, if you want, and I’ll have mine.”

I rolled my blanket around my arm. It was somehow larger when it wasn’t wrapped around
me.

“Through here. Follow me.”

Fitz led me through the door beside the ‘bed’ that I’d slept in last night (last night?) and through
into a small, dark square of concrete.

“Kitchen’s through there.” he said, waving a careless hand in the direction of another door
leading off to the left. “The bedrooms are down there. Mine and what’ll probably be yours are
here. The girls and Rosie sleep further on.”

The ‘bedroom’ was tiny. It didn’t have any windows, I noticed, and it took my eyes a while to
adjust to the sudden darkness.

“We usually have candles.” he apologised. “We’ve pretty much run out. Bed’s here. I’ll take
this.”

He bent down and picked up his own, green blanket in one fluid movement.

“Where will you sleep?” I asked him, through a sleep-thick voice.

“Sofa, probably. It’s not that uncomfortable.”

He gave me a wan smile. I returned it, but I’m not sure he saw, because he’d already turned
around. I waited until he was out of the room, with the door shut soundly behind him. I peeled
off my shirt and jeans. They were covered in grime and street dust. One of the sleeves had
been torn almost clean off. I couldn’t remember doing that. I looked around and there was no
dresser or table, so I left them in a heap by the mattress on the floor before climbing gladly
onto it. It was so much more comfortable than last night.

Despite all of his obnoxiousness, I couldn’t really help beginning to like Fitz.